Cook-out, Podologia, and more

This post could be long. I think about all of these topics I want to tell you about while I’m doing other things, and then when I get behind the computer I forget what they were. If I can remember tonight I’m going to do it.

We went to a cook-out Saturday and had a nice time. It was a crazy hat party so if you had summer birthday (which is now) you had to wear a hat. They may show up on my pictures.

two new friends. Hillary and Denisse. Denisse is a Chilenafriend Becky making homemade ice cream. she had a summer birthdayOur pastor who is making his ice cream. he’s planning on retiring in October.

Monday I went with a friend to get a podologia. Last week at VBS we were talking about pedicures and she said I had to try this instead. It is more than a pedicure and what we can get done when we go in the States. They take you back into a small room and you sit in a “dental chair” and there is no water bath. A podologia is truly a procedure to get off the hard skin and calluses around your heels and on the balls of your feet. They even fixed my funky little toe nails. They actually look normal now. I missed the massage (there was a little at the end) but my feet haven’t been this soft in years. She used a blade to scrape and a little sander to get rid of all of that dead skin. Maybe I’m getting too detailed….anyway, I’ll be going back when my mom gets down here.

My friend has lived here for 32 years so she speaks fluently, but she was in her own room. I was trying to talk to the lady who was doing my feet. She was asking me something with “calor”. I thought she was asking me what color I wanted my toes painted so I kept saying color names. She was actually asking me if I was hot.

the room with the “dentist chair”. Notice the tool hanging on the wall. it had a mini sander on the endmy friend Jean who took me with herthe pretty lady that did my nails and polishFinished feet after polish

Lastly, just a few little things to tell. Driving- I’ve been in a car a little lately. I notice that you can stop on a busy street and as long as you put your hazard lights on they don’t care. Otherwise, they’ll beep at you. So they like the hazard lights.

The grocery store- when you buy produce they have a little stand that you have to go to get your food weighed. I don’t think they trust the shoppers to do it themselves. They also do it for homemade bread items like rolls, french loaves, etc. You put it in the bag and they weigh it. If you go to the cashier and haven’t weighed it you can’t buy it (unless you go back to the weigh station).

Also, there are college students who bag your groceries. They don’t get paid by the store but work on tips. I didn’t realize this until we had been here so I wasn’t tipping for a couple of bags, but I do now. We usually tip just a couple hundred pesos which is less than $.50 Doesn’t sound like much but I guess it adds up throughout the day. These students will also push the grocery cart full of bags and take it to your apartment and unload them in your kitchen for a tip of 1,000 pesos which is about $2.00. We haven’t done that because our refrigerator is so small we can only get a few things in there at a time.

Tomorrow we are having some missionaries over for dinner. We met them last week when they brought their son to VBS. They also are from Lewisville, TX which was super close to us when we were in TX. Hillary is also coming. She has 4 kids who are with their Dad until next month. What a story she has to tell! If I get her permission I’ll share it with you. She’s a neat lady. In fact, tomorrow she’s coming over and we’re meeting Denisse at the mall to practice our Spanish. Denisse doesn’t talk English fluently but she understands a lot. She is great because she speaks slowly and annunciates the words clearly for us to understand.

We’re waiting for St. Andrews to respond to us about Kent’s application. We should know something next month.